Samsung’s One UI 7 offers a number of visual enhancements, including the pill-shaped widget called Now Bar, which displays certain ongoing activities like timers, music playback, and food delivery tracking. On the flagship Galaxy S25 and S24 series, the widget appears at the bottom of the screen between the quick-launch shortcuts and below the ultrasonic fingerprint scanner.
However, on the recently launched Galaxy A56, the widget appears much higher in the display, which not only disrupts the clean look but also covers a more important part of the wallpaper.
The optical fingerprint scanner on the Galaxy A56 is positioned at the very bottom of the screen, which means the fingerprint icon would overlap with the Now Bar. So, the actual reason behind this difference is not the type of fingerprint scanner, but its placement.
That said, users who don’t like the placement can turn off the feature by navigating to Settings » Lock Screen and AOD » Now Bar.
Models with side-mounted fingerprint scanners, such as the Galaxy A26 and A06, should face no problem in displaying the Now Bar at the bottom of the screen, just like the flagships. I also assume the placement of the optical fingerprint scanner can be adjusted to match the needs of the UI.
So, I’m hoping to see a uniform look of the lock screen across different price segments, starting with future models. Still, it remains to be seen whether this slightly unpleasant look is enough for the giant to allocate some time and effort to it.
